Sports and Selfies

   It's July - my favorite month of the year. Why? Because it's Tour de France time! I love the Tour. I can sit for HOURS watching those guys ride. I love the bikes, the drama, the suffering, and the quaint little villages that litter the French countryside - I love it all. However, my love of the Tour isn't the focus of this post. No, the subject of this post has long been one of my pet peeves, but has now just become an issue at the Tour - people taking selfies / photos at stupid moments.
   One of the beautiful things about a bike race is that the course is open to the public. No tickets necessary. Anyone can go down and watch the riders go by. Unfortunately, unless you go to a lot of bike races, you really don't have a concept of how fast these guys are going. Dudley and I went to the Tour of California a few years ago, and I was shocked at how fast Dave Zabriskie and Levi Leipheimer FLEW by me. And they were CLOSE, too. Only about a foot away, maybe two.
   So, now imagine a pack of 197 riders barreling down a road at 40k / hour, when all of a sudden, some guy runs out into the road, turns his back to the riders and takes a selfie. Don't think anyone would be that stupid? Well, they are. And the riders in the Tour are mad about it.
   And they have every right to be. It's DANGEROUS - to the riders and the spectators. In yesterday's stage, a spectator stepped into the road to take a photo and was hit by Team Sky rider David Garcia Lopez. Though Lopez didn't go down, the spectator did. This caused a chain-reaction of other crashes that involved several riders, including former TdF winner Andy Schleck. Unfortunately, Schleck's knee was too damaged to go on. Today, he pulled out of the Tour entirely. Still think that photo is worth it?
   This trend of stupid photo taking in running has been going on for a while. I first noticed it a few years ago at the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville. I was running along in the middle of the race course, when suddenly the person in front of me stopped, pulled out their phone and took a photo. This happened several times by different people. Sometimes it'd be a selfie, sometimes it'd be a photo of something scenic along the road. It was worse at the Nike Women's Half Marathon in DC last year. Women would just randomly stop in the middle of the road to take a photo of the Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument, or whatever. Sometimes, there would be two or three people suddenly stopping and they'd take a group selfie. 
   This might seem like something that is really no big deal, right? So what if a person wants to take a selfie during a running race? He's not hurting anyone, right? Well, see, that's where you're wrong. Have you ever followed someone who is trying to take a photo while running? They don't run in a straight line - they weave all around. It would be very easy to run into someone who isn't paying attention to where they are going. And while I was fortunate to not run into the people who suddenly stopped in front of me, people at the 2013 Hong Kong marathon weren't so lucky. According to Time magazine, "the race saw an influx of injuries this year due to runners stopping to take self-portraits and causing a pile-up that resulted in battered and bruised participants." 
   I totally get why people want to take photos during a race. Races are fun and they are a huge accomplishment. Heck, though I generally don't carry my camera when I run, I have taken a few photos during races before. The difference is though, I move off the course before doing it. 
   So please, if you want to take a photo, feel free. Just don't be stupid about it. Please be aware of the other participants and move off the course. 
   See you on the roads!